


Zoo Animals

by secondsofhappiness (orphan_account)



Series: The Mill Stories [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Asexuality, Gen, M/M, Roblivion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:00:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/secondsofhappiness
Summary: It’s weird but Liv knows Aaron likes it. She knows because she tracks the route of his eyes, all heavy and sleepy: down to Rob’s hair, over his face and down his body before he settles himself back against the sofa and tightens his fingers around Robert’s arm.Definite zoo animals.-----------Part 2 of The Mill Stories. Liv, Aaron and Rob watch a movie on the couch on a Friday night.





	Zoo Animals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginentertain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginentertain/gifts).



> I love writing Rob and Aaron through Liv's eyes and getting to try to spend time in her brain. This was inspired by a prompt from @jenisnotherenow on tumblr who wanted Liv watching Aaron and Rob cuddles. It's a little different from your prompt but I hope you still enjoy it!

It’s weird and they’re at it again. The ‘half sofa cuddle’ as she likes to call it.

She should be used to it by now but there’s also something kind of fascinating about it, like watching animals at a zoo. It’s how she feels sometimes; that pane of glass often feels so thick and impenetrable. Living with two blokes who are gross in their love is something she gets teased a little bit at school for but it doesn’t mean shit - they don’t see what she sees.

Yeah, it’s obvious her brother is not the conventional caregiver. He’s crap at ironing and once accidentally dyed one of her pale blue jumpers into a splotchy navy mess but he also makes a killer bacon butty and gives the best hugs. Robert’s the same; he’s an idiot. He’s also terrible at plenty of stuff including, you know, being normal but then he’ll sit for as long as she needs him to when school work is hard or will protect the people he loves with the kind of ferocity you should be scared of.

All considered, she’s lucky. Not many people can say their home life is bat shit crazy but secretly amazing. It’s never boring. There’s a revolving circle of randoms who appear like Faith and Charity and Paddy - all of them pretty weird - and then there’s the other two blokes to contend with, one a newborn and the other may as well be. Gerry’s a constant ray of stupid and Seb, well, he took a while to get used to but he’s alright when he’s quiet and likes when she plays with his fingers. He makes this squeaky laughing noise and Rob smiles at her like she’s found the solution to world peace. 

So yeah, life could be worse. She’s got plenty of cool women in her life and, in many ways, they’re just as mental as the blokes but she likes how things are, holds onto it more than she’d admit.

They’re still cuddling though. She tucks her feet under her, the wool of her slipper socks twisting uncomfortably but she’s half buried in the couch cushions so it’s fine. She watches.

Aaron does this thing where he hides his smiles. She’s seen it a hundred times but he lets them linger for half a second, all cute and unassuming but then pretends he wasn’t affected at all. He does it less behind the Mill door but she still clocks it and well, she  _ knows him _ \- he’s her  _ person _ .  He’s got the smile on his face now but it’s permanent and subtle as he shuffles in place, Rob’s head jostling against his shoulder. It’s the shifting about that makes Rob sit up a little, clearly allowing Aaron the opportunity to get comfortable but Aaron simply rolls his eyes and tips his head to tell Rob to snuggle back down.

_ Gross _ . Especially Robert’s face. He’s not like Aaron, never tempers his feelings because his eyes are metaphorical hearts. The day they learned about metaphors in school was the same day Rob told her that he thought schools made kids too big for their boots. She’d teased him over tea. “Love is a battlefield, Rob. Fight for it.” “Love is a captive animal, you need to set it free, Robert.” “You’re a good cook, so you know that love’s a nutrient, it sustains us.”

She’d wanted him to make vomit noises. She didn’t believe a word she was saying but it had been fun to embarrass him and the fact he’d messed her hair up on his way upstairs was pretty satisfying.

So, it’s not as if they don’t know how much they make her want to vom but the whole TV and sofa time thing has become so common and they’re hardly able to keep a lid on it at the best of times so she lets them off, gives them this. 

If she doesn’t understand all the touchy feely stuff, it’s not their fault. They look pretty happy so that’s enough to tell her that it means something important to them. 

She glances over, watches Aaron’s fingers stretch o lie over the wool at the sleeve of Rob’s jumper. Robert has an arm tucked against Aaron’s side and they’re pressed pretty close but apparently that’s not enough -  _ it never is _ . Robert mumbles something about the movie they’re watching, the movie Liv checked out of ages ago. It’s an action movie but too heavy on action and nowhere near enough humour; they’re enjoying it though and it’s common for them all to throw comments at the screen. In the Mill, you get more props for the most scathing comment, it’s brilliant.

“Look at that hair, looks like a wig,” Aaron mumbles. It’s a half hearted insult but Robert laughs under his breath and Liv smiles because he’s doing that thing where he presses a nose to Aaron’s bicep for a brief second. It’s weird but Liv knows Aaron likes it. She knows because she tracks the route of his eyes, all heavy and sleepy: down to Rob’s hair, over his face and down his body before he settles himself back against the sofa and tightens his fingers around Robert’s arm. 

Definite zoo animals. 

She learns a lot from them.The people at school who snog each other’s faces off or grope each other against the wall at the back of the Science block make her pretty uncomfortable and all of that makes no sense but the subtle stuff does. Sometimes she catches herself staring but how else is she supposed to understand? Not that she can explain it all. Not yet, anyway.

Aaron’s laughing now. The film must have remembered that humour is  _ a thing _ . Liv checks back in as Robert’s sliding out of Aaron’s grasp and off the sofa. Aaron’s hand rests immediately in the dent on the couch as if keeping it warm for Robert’s return.

“Hot chocolate?” he asks and she’s half distracted watching Aaron stare it his arse and wondering what her brother gets out of it to realise Rob’s asking her. She blinks.

“Sorry, what?”

Robert’s already in the kitchen, banging about like he normally does. Aaron ‘never puts his shit back where it belongs’ or so he always says, usually during one of their epic bickering sessions. She’s learned that bickering is one of their  _ things _ , that it’s healthy for them and means they’re good. 

“I’m making a hot chocolate, you want one?” Robert calls back and she’s smiling because yes, yes she does.

“I suppose, if you’re making one.” She hopes he is serious about it.

“Well, I mean, I could just eat all these marshmallows straight out of the bag or I could make you a hot chocolate and put them on top. Up to you.” He’s being all sarcastic and typical Rob so she turns to find his eyebrows raised and smiling. She sticks her tongue out and he knows that’s a yes.

“You’re about as polite as your brother, you are.”

She scoffs, sharing a grin with Aaron. “Well you’re all disgusting and loved up with him so I reckon you find that stuff endearing.”

Robert’s at the kettle so she can’t see his face but she knows he’s smiling. Aaron’s grinning wider at her and she really should be grossed out by how nice she feels but she can’t be, not really. She spent too long without this casual stuff and she’s not about to pretend too hard that it doesn’t matter as much as it does.

“You alright?” Aaron asks. He’s got that look on his face, the ‘brother look’ as she calls it. She secretly loves it.

“I’m forced to sit here with you two like love’s young dream but I’m getting a free hot chocolate so swings and roundabouts,” she throws back and he’s rolling his eyes, reading her well.

“You’re proper hard done by.”

She laughs, can’t stop the smirk at her lips. “Yeah, it’s a constant struggle.”

Aaron’s doing the thing with his sleeves where he pulls them down over his hands and she watches him tug and snuggle into the couch, casting his eyes towards the noise in the kitchen and then back to her. “In all seriousness though, Liv, he’s really happy you’re ok with him.”

She swallows and nods. “Yeah, well, just as long as he knows I’m scrappy and I’d do him in if he messes up again.” Aaron laughs at that, tipping his head back. His eyes grow soft and she shuffles under the weight of his stare. The ‘uber brother look’. “I’m proud of you, you know?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious, Liv,” Aaron urges and she nods, dismisses it against the force of his words. “I know stuff has been tough for you recently what with the Gabby stuff and Alex leaving and all of the change with Robert moving back in and Seb staying over but you’ve been great about it and I wanted you to know that things will settle down eventually.”

“If I get marshmallows on my hot chocolate on a Friday night then he can stay,” she mumbles and feels warm under Aaron’s smile, the kind that alters his eyes and makes him look extra cuddly. No wonder Seb has developed this obsession with her brother; she can share him a bit but only sometimes. 

“There you go.” Robert’s behind her passing the mug over the back of the sofa which she takes from the handle and wraps her hands around. With Robert’s return to the Mill came the return of the fancy kitchen stuff and his chunky mugs - sometimes she loves them more than she loves Robert and she tells him. He needs keeping on his toes.”Break them and you’re dead,” he says with a smile and if that isn’t their way of doing things. She loves it. 

Twenty minutes and the movie is at a pretty lame climax with the lead guy half covered in blood pretending to take out a bunch of other dodgy looking blokes armed with a shiny car and his muscles. All the women in the movie swoon all over the main character and even Aaron made a quiet comment he thought she hadn’t heard about how fit he is. She doesn’t see it, doesn’t get anything from the constant flexing in tank tops or getting his kit off. Why do blokes do that? Does that do stuff for people? 

Obviously so, because Robert’s biting his lip against a smile as Aaron mumbles under his breath. They’re pressed together, Rob cradling his own hot drink but he’s tipped sideways into Aaron’s chest, their heads close and bodies angled perfectly to share their thoughts which they do  _ constantly _ . It’d be annoying if Liv didn’t have great hearing and didn’t find their running commentary hilarious. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no to a choke hold from him,” Robert mumbles and he looks pretty pleased with himself when Aaron swats at his knee.

“As if someone like Statham would look twice at a weirdo like you,” Aaron counters and settles into his own smugness. “He’s too busy with that Russian lass. I don’t think he’d be a hot chocolate on the couch kind of a guy.”

Robert almost chokes on his drink and Liv presses a grin into her mug. Robert’s swallowing, half laughing and leaning up to keep from spilling on his precious cushions. “Says the guy who boxes, who used to be this hard arse mechanic and who is sitting drinking said hot chocolate and wearing the fluffy socks I bought him two Christmasses ago because they keep his feet the warmest.”

Aaron’s frowning, pursing his lips against the sarcasm but Liv can see his eyes sparkling and when Robert settles back into his side she watches as he waits a beat, wriggles his shoulders and sighs, chest heavy with it when he tips his head a little and presses the tiniest of kisses into Robert’s hair.

Liv’s heart clenches. That’s it. That’s the stuff she  _ gets _ . It makes sense to her because Aaron’s a simple guy, not one for showy stuff but he is so at ease around Robert and so casual with his touches and affection at times in the smallest and most meaningful of ways. None of it is particularly suggestive, most of it isn’t there to get a reaction but is just a way of showing how much stuff means. She could learn to do that. It seems pretty nice if only the right feelings would come along to help her want to be like that with someone, a someone who would understand that she wasn’t able to give a lot but that she’d give what she could.

Yeah, it’s wishful thinking and all too complicated and a bit upsetting for a Friday in front of a crap movie but with another glance at Aaron and Robert and something settles in her chest. They teach her and they don’t realise it. They like to show love via insult. It’s her way and she loves it, feels like she’s found home. It’s all still so new, though - their living arrangement - but there’s a part of Liv’s heart that feels desperate with need for things to stay as they are. Having people close who also know what it’s like to feel broken is just about the best thing ever and yeah, Aaron’s right, she’s hard and she’ll be damned if anyone tries to take it away.


End file.
